High risk, high reward

August 31, 2008|By Jill Zuckman, Tribune Correspondent and Tribune correspondents Mike Dorning and David Greising contributed to this report.

PITTSBURGH — There is an inverse symmetry to the Republican and Democratic tickets now that Sen. John McCain made the bold gamble of choosing Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to be his running mate.

In Palin, 44, the veteran McCain, 72, has paired up with someone who has been governor for just two years, preceded by two terms as mayor of Wasilla, population 9,780. She has little to no foreign policy or national security experience, compared with McCain, who has served on Capitol Hill since 1982 and is ranking member of the Armed Services Committee.

By contrast, Sen. Barack Obama, who moved from the Illinois State Senate to the U.S. Senate 31/2 years ago, took a more traditional route, picking Sen. Joe Biden to be his running mate. Biden has spent virtually his entire career representing Delaware in the Senate since 1972 and heads the Committee on Foreign Relations. And his foreign policy and national security experience dwarfs Obama's by decades.

From almost the moment McCain's decision became public Friday morning, Democrats pounced on Palin's lack of experience on the national stage.

"It is a real roll of the dice," said Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.). "Certainly the choice of Palin puts to rest any argument about inexperience on the Democratic team, and while Palin is a fine person, her lack of experience makes the thought of her assuming the presidency troubling."

Republicans pounced right back, underscoring what they see as Obama's own limited credentials.

"Palin has more executive-level decision-making and governing experience in two years than Obama and Biden do combined," said Scott Reed, Sen. Bob Dole's 1996 presidential campaign manager. "This decision restructures the whole race."

By that measure, of course, Palin also has more executive experience than McCain, who has spent his entire political career on Capitol Hill.

A brighter spotlight

Palin is the former point guard and captain of the Wasilla High School Warriors who went on to become the Miss Wasilla 1984 beauty queen. From there she became a local sports reporter. She's married to her high school sweetheart who is a commercial fisherman, member of the steelworkers union and a world champion snowmobile racer. She has five children -- one of whom is deploying with the Army to Iraq in September.

And she gives a spirited speech, as the crowd in Dayton discovered.

Still, for all of Palin's allure, including making history as the first woman nominated to become the Republican vice president, she presents risks.

She's never truly been vetted by the national media, a process that often turns up interesting and embarrassing bits of information that can shape voters' perception of a relatively unknown candidate. Obama, by contrast, has been in the public eye ever since he was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2004.

And then there is the vice presidential debate on Oct. 2 at Washington University in St. Louis. Palin will face Biden, a talented debater who participated in one forum after another during the Democratic primary campaign this year.

For McCain, Palin has the potential to remind voters that the senator would be the oldest person ever elected to a first term as president and she is one heartbeat away from becoming commander in chief.

But she also could underscore McCain's own reputation as a reformer. In Alaska, she pushed ethics legislation amid a corruption investigation of Alaska lawmakers and limited requests for congressional earmarks after Alaska's "bridge to nowhere" made the state a national laughingstock.

Reform on her resume

Perhaps her best reform credential stems from her stint as one of three commissioners on the Alaska Oil & Gas Conservation Commission. She resigned from the commission in January of 2004 after less than a year, citing her concern about conflicts of interest within the organization.

But while she was there, Palin assisted an investigation that led to the resignation of commissioner Randy Ruedrich, head of the state Republican Party, on charges of conflicts of interest. The allegations stemmed both from Ruedrich's party activities and his ties to Doyon Drilling, a company that drilled on the North Slope as a contractor to petroleum giant BP.

"She was a real bulldog" regarding investigations of Ruedrich's alleged conflicts, said Dan Seamount, who served on the commission with Palin. "She saw something that she thought was wrong, and she wanted to see it righted."

Past complicates path

By contrast, in a race where Obama is supposed to represent bold change, he chose his running mate conservatively. And McCain, who is supposed to be the Washington insider, chose a Washington outsider who has fought her state party establishment, battled corruption and won.

"This is such a terrific, terrific choice," Rush Limbaugh, the conservative talk radio host, told listeners. "Democrats rejected a woman. Obama could have picked one, but he bypassed Hillary. ... Look what has happened, for all the talk of a new kind of politics, he chose Biden."